My Lazy Book Review of Charlotte’s Web

I saw the movie once, and when I saw a talking pig, I did not dare finish it. I am one of those rare humans who don’t like animals. I don’t hate them. I’m just not fond of them. Normal animals are hard for me to handle. If you throw in the human ability to talk in there, I just go nuts. But this book is in a lot of Books to Read Before You Die list, and because I don’t know when I would die, I read it when I acquired a copy at the Free Library. If you don’t know what that is, it’s this small library where people can just take the books that they like, and they can also put more books in for others to read. #thanks

This story is about a pig and a spider. There are other animals in the story too, but they are not as important as the aforementioned pig and spider. One is named Wilbur while the other one is called Charlotte. From the title, you might guess that Charlotte is the spider and Wilbur is the pig. That is easy enough.

The story starts with Fern. No, she’s not a pig nor a spider. She’s a little girl who one day sees her father carrying an ax. When she finds out that he’s going to kill a pig, she protests and asks her parents to let her keep the pig as a pet. In my opinion, this is a silly thing to do. Sure, pigs are cute when they are small, but they do grow bigger. Don’t expect it to be cute by then when it’s covered in its own feces. Anyway, I digress.

Eventually, Fern’s parents encouraged her to sell the pig because it was getting bigger. (Or maybe they thought it was not cute anymore.) Fern sold it to her uncle, and every once in a while, she would visit Wilbur in his new home. This was the time when Wilbur started talking. He had conversations with the goose, tries to befriend a rat, and meets Charlotte, his new best friend. They are a perfect example of animals, who, no matter what the race, color, or ethnicity, could get along well. Humans could learn a thing or two from this.

Anyway, Charlotte is a really talented spider. She can read and spell. She says “Salutations!” instead of “Hello!” Humans could learn from this too. Dude, this spider could read and spell. Humans should at least be able to differentiate between your and you’re. Again, I digress. It was no secret that Wilbur would be killed someday. The farmers are feeding him to make him bigger in time for the feast. When he was told about this, it made Wilbur sad. Charlotte promised to help him, and that promise gave Wilbur hope. He followed Charlotte’s advice to eat heartily and to not worry.

Charlotte’s plan was simple. She used her web to send a message to the people. At first, she wrote “SOME PIG.” This is why the book is called Charlotte’s Web because she used her own web to save Wilbur. The farmers discovered it, and it attracted the attention of the media. People came from afar to watch the miraculous writing on the web. They all thought Wilbur was really some pig. If you ask for my opinion (even if you don’t, I’m still telling you), I don’t agree with this at all. I agree with Mrs. Zuckerman, the farmer’s wife. When her husband told her about the web, this is what she said.

“Well,” said Mrs. Zuckerman, “it seems to me you’re a little off. It seems to me we have no ordinary spider.”

You tell it, girl! The pig didn’t make the web anyway. But that’s beside the point. Let’s get back to the story. As the months went by, the people lost interest in the web. Then Mr. Zuckerman decided to go with his original plan to kill Wilbur. But Charlotte knew more words than just some and pig. Next, she wrote the word terrific. Again, the people’s interest was piqued. Wilbur was happy that he has another reason to make Mr. Zuckerman reconsider about killing him. But while this was happening, Charlotte was getting ready to lay her eggs and was slowly getting weaker. She was getting busy preparing the sac in which she would lay the eggs. Carrying the babies and building a sac for them is apparently exhausting.

Back to the story. The Zuckermans decided to take Wilbur to the county fair. They called him Zuckerman’s Famous Pig. Wilbur was given a Buttermilk bath, which was supposed to make him look more presentable. Even though Charlotte was getting ready for her babies, she decided to tag along. They convinced the rat, Templeton, to come with them as well. They needed him to get newspaper and magazine clippings so Charlotte could decide what to write for Wilbur next. This word turned out to be humble. After Charlotte finished with the web, she made her egg sac.

The next day, they discovered that another pig had already won first price. Mrs. Zuckerman started to cry. But then the speakers called for them to receive a prize. They were all relieved. Wilbur won an award after all.

However, Wilbur’s happiness was cut short that very night when Charlotte finally died. He took the egg sac with him, and he took care of it until all the eggs hatched in the spring. But before we get over Charlotte’s death, here are two sentences from the book that would cause you a bit of sadness.

“Nobody, of the hundreds of people that had visited the Fair, knew that a grey spider had played the most important part of all. No one was with her when she died.”

Finally, when the eggs hatched, Wilbur attended to them. He asked them if they needed anything. But they all left except for three. Wilbur was sad to see them go, but they had to. At least there were three of them left. Wilbur thought all of them had gone, but then he heard a small voice, saying “Salutations!”

Many thanks to Cez, the previous owner of this book. She left a note saying I should pass it on to someone else, so I’ll let my siblings read it. It’s never going out of the family, though. Mehehe.